The Blurting Method for Studying: Step by Step

The blurting method for studying is simple: you read a topic, close your notes, write down everything you can remember on a blank page, then open your notes and check what you missed. The gaps you find are what you study next. It works because pulling information out of your memory builds that memory far more than reading it again.

If your usual revision is rereading and highlighting, blurting will feel harder, and the page will probably look emptier than you expected. That is the point. An empty spot on the page is a gap you can now fix, instead of one you would have found out about in the exam.

What the blurting method is

Blurting is a revision method where you write or say everything you can remember about a topic, in any order, without looking at your notes. The word comes from the way it feels: you "blurt out" what is in your head. Afterwards you compare your page with your notes and mark what is missing or wrong.

It is one of the simplest ways to practise retrieval, which is the act of bringing information back from memory. Our guide to active recall covers the idea in general. Blurting is a specific, low-tech way of doing it. All you need is a pen and a blank sheet.

Why blurting works

When you reread, your brain recognises the words and gives you a comfortable feeling of "I know this". That feeling is often wrong. Recognising something on a page is much easier than producing it from nothing, and exams ask you to produce.

Research backs this up. Roediger and Karpicke (2006) had students study a passage and then either reread it or try to recall it. A week later, the students who had practised recall remembered much more than the students who had reread, even though the rereaders felt more confident. Karpicke and Blunt (2011) published a similar result in Science: practising retrieval beat studying with concept mapping, a method many students consider active and effective. You can read that paper through its DOI link.

Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) reviewed ten popular study techniques and rated practice testing as one of the most useful, while rereading and highlighting were rated low. Blurting is practice testing without the need for any questions, because you create your own prompt: the title of the topic.

There is a second benefit. Blurting shows you what you do not know, quickly and honestly. The result of a blurt is a list of gaps, which tells you where your next hour of study should go.

It is also honest about the limits. Blurting has not been studied under that name, so claims you may see online, such as exact percentage gains, should be treated with caution. The mechanism behind it, retrieval practice, is well supported. The method is a convenient way to apply it.

How to do the blurting method step by step

Here is the full process. Allow 20 to 30 minutes for one topic.

Step 1: Pick a small topic

Choose something you can cover in a single page, such as "causes of the French Revolution" or "the stages of mitosis". A whole chapter is too big. Smaller topics give you cleaner feedback and a better chance of finishing.

Step 2: Study it

Read your notes or textbook on that topic for a few minutes. Try to understand it, not just see it. Read it as if you were going to explain it to a friend afterwards.

Step 3: Close everything and blurt

Close your notes and put them out of sight. On a blank page, write the topic at the top and then write everything you remember, in any order. Include definitions, examples, dates, names and the links between ideas. Do not worry about neat writing or perfect structure.

Some tips for this step:

• Set a timer for 5 to 10 minutes.
• Keep writing, even when it feels slow. Pauses are where memory is working.
• If you cannot remember a detail, leave a gap and move on.
• Draw arrows between ideas that connect.

Step 4: Check against your notes

Now open your notes. Use a pen of a different colour, so you can see what came from memory and what you added. Go through the material and mark:

• What you missed completely.
• What you got wrong.
• What you remembered vaguely and need to make precise.

The coloured additions on your page are the most useful part. They show exactly what to focus on.

Step 5: Repeat

Study the gaps for a few minutes, then blurt again on a fresh sheet. The second attempt should be fuller and more accurate. If it is, you are ready to move on. If a few points are still missing, repeat once more or leave them for the next day.

A worked example

Imagine you are revising photosynthesis for a biology exam.

You read the section for five minutes, close the book and write at the top of a blank page: "Photosynthesis". After seven minutes, your page says that plants turn light, water and carbon dioxide into glucose and oxygen, that it happens in chloroplasts and that chlorophyll absorbs light. You wrote the overall equation. You also drew an arrow from "light" to "glucose".

You open your notes with a red pen and notice what is missing. You forgot that there are two stages, the light-dependent reactions and the Calvin cycle. You wrote "it makes ATP" but you did not say where. You got the location of the Calvin cycle wrong. And you forgot the factors that limit the rate: light intensity, carbon dioxide and temperature.

In red, you add those points. Then you spend five minutes studying exactly those parts. After a short break, you blurt again on a new sheet. This time the two stages are there, with where each one happens and what goes in and out. You are now much closer to being able to write a full answer in the exam.

That is the whole method. The first page showed you the gaps, and the second page showed that they were closing.

The method works best with a plan

A single blurt helps, but several spread over days help far more. The reason is that each attempt has to pull the information out of a slightly faded memory, and that effort is what strengthens it. This is the idea behind spaced repetition, which our guide on spaced repetition and the forgetting curve explains in more detail.

A simple schedule:

• Blurt on the day you first learn the topic.
• Blurt again the next day, using the points you missed.
• Blurt a third time after about a week.
• Keep a list of the points you keep missing, and give those extra time.

If you have an exam in a few days, you will not have time for a perfect spacing. Do your best with two or three attempts over the days you have. Our guide to how to revise for an exam in a week shows how to fit this kind of work into a short timeline.

Making blurting work for different subjects

The method needs small adjustments depending on the subject.

History and humanities

Write the sequence of events and the reasons behind them. Add names, dates and the consequences. Check that your page explains why things happened, not just what happened.

Sciences

Blurt definitions, processes, equations and the conditions under which each one applies. Draw the diagrams from memory, such as a cell or a circuit, and label them.

Maths

Blurt the method, not the result. Write the steps of how to solve a type of problem, then solve one example without looking. Knowing the method and being able to apply it are separate skills, so do both.

Languages

Blurt vocabulary around a theme, or write a short paragraph using the grammar rule you studied. Check the spelling and the endings afterwards.

Common blurting mistakes

Most failures with the method come from a handful of habits.

• Peeking. Looking at your notes halfway through defeats the purpose. If you cannot remember something, leave a gap.
• Choosing a topic that is too big. A whole unit gives you a messy page and no clear feedback. Break it down.
• Skipping the check. The learning happens in the comparison. If you blurt but do not look at what you missed, you only did half the method.
• Not fixing the gaps. Listing what you missed is not enough. Study those points, then blurt again.
• Copying your notes' layout. Your page does not need to look like your notes. Write in whatever order the ideas come, then organise later if you want to.
• Only doing it once. One blurt shows you the gaps. Several blurts over days are what make the memory last.

It is also worth knowing when blurting is not enough. It is a good tool for building and checking knowledge. It does not replace practice questions and past papers, which train you to apply what you know in the format of the exam.

Doing it with Orbily

Blurting by hand takes a page, a pen and some honesty. If you would rather test yourself on a lesson without writing the questions yourself, Orbily can help. Take a photo of your notes or import a file, and Orbily's Active Recall turns the lesson into multiple-choice questions, with a short explanation after every answer. It is a different format from blurting, because you choose among answers instead of writing from scratch, but it asks you to retrieve from memory in the same way, and you can replay only the questions you missed. For the full blank-page version, keep doing the blurt on paper. You can read more about Active Recall.

A simple plan for today

If you want to try blurting today, here is a minimal version:

• Choose one small topic from what you are studying this week.
• Read it for five minutes, then close the book.
• Set a timer for seven minutes and write everything you remember on a blank page.
• Open your notes and add what you missed in a different colour.
• Study the gaps for five minutes, then blurt again on a fresh page.
• Tomorrow, blurt the same topic again, starting from the points you missed.

After a week of doing this, you will have a clear sense of what you know and what you do not, and that is worth more than another reread.

Final thoughts

The blurting method for studying turns revision into a quick test you give yourself. It shows you your gaps, it is based on retrieval practice and it needs nothing more than paper. Pick a small topic, write what you remember, check it, fix the gaps and come back over several days. It will feel harder than rereading, and that effort is the reason it works.